A Beautiful Love and an Ugly Love | Reading Till We Have Faces by C.S. Lewis 

October 30, 2026

Lewis, you’ve done it again! You wrote a book I love that has transformed the way I think and see my faith and the world. When you said that was one of your favorite books that you have written (being this and Perelandra) I see why. You brought in your love of myths and wove a golden thread of love and Christianity through the whole thing. Marvelous. Simply brilliant! 

There is so much I could say about this story. So much that I love. There are three things in particular that stood out to me. While drafting this post, I had so much to say, too much, and so this is going to be the first post in a three-part series focusing on three things that stood out to me while reading Till We Have Faces by C.S. Lewis. Starting with seeing this book as a mirror to look through and see if your love really is love. 

If you have not read this book, then proceed with caution! There are spoilers for this book, so I would recommend reading it first, but if you are someone like me who doesn’t mind spoilers, then continue on.

And we all, with unveiled face, beholding the glory of the Lord, are being transformed into the same image from one degree of glory to another. For this comes from the Lord who is the Spirit. — 2 Corinthians 3:18

The Myth

Truly, I want to read Till We Have Faces again. To start afresh. To see the story again having read the end.

I have known the story of Eros and Psyche, or rather Cupid and Psyche, for years. I loved studying Greek mythology in middle school and high school, and this was always one of my favorite myths. It is very Beauty and the Beast, and having grown up with the animated Disney movie, perhaps that is why I was found of this story.

The story of the girl saved by the gods, and who saved her love. She went on daring quests and did everything in her power to prove her love. As a reward, she could stay with her love and become a god like him. Forever together and never apart.

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A Beautiful Love & An Ugly Love (Love vs. Possession)

At its core, this is a story about beauty and ugliness. Yes, there is the physical aspect of Orual being physically ugly and her dear Psyche being so beautiful, as beautiful as a goddess. But it isn’t the physical beauty that this book surrounds, but the internal one.

Psyche is beautiful inside and out. She has a softness about her. A love for her people and those around her. She was willing to walk for hours, touching person after person to give them hope even when it made her sick, catching their disease. She was brave, willing to sacrifice herself to save her people and bring them rain. Humble, loving, kind, firm, sacrificial. A beautiful bright soul.

This contrasts her oldest sister, who was called a goblin. So long was she abused and called ugly that it seeped into her very soul. The one thing she desired most was to be loved, but that desire, when unmet, turned into a monster. She fed off people’s love and attention. She held on to people so tightly it destroyed them and destroyed her own heart.

Two sisters.

Two lives.

Two loves.

One selfless and warm. The other cold and jealous. Jealous not because of wanting what the other had but jealous because of wanting to be everything. The most loved. The sustainer of life. A love that is possessive. Mine. She is MINE. It is not genuine love. No, it is painful and heartbreaking and cruel. A love (though is it love?) that demands and takes. A love that holds on so tight it breaks, kills, and pushes away all hope of true, meaningful love. It is abusive in nature. 

Orual is a mirror. What do you see? Have you felt like she? She longed for love but in all the wrong ways. She had two sisters, and both she pushed away. One she stopped loving the moment the youngest was born. No more time for Redival. Then, Psyche, she loved in a possessive way. Orual raised her and took care of her. She was in many ways her daughter. Hers. She would do anything for Psyche. Anything but let her be happy without her. Anything but let her find love and fulfillment outside of her own care. Anything but let her Psyche love and be loved by the god more than herself. 

She loved Bardia in a lustful fantasy. She wanted him. Desired him. He was married and had a wife and children. She could never have that love of his. So she took in other ways. Keep him working, always busy, always with her. Let his wife suffer as he spends all his time performing his duty to his queen. She didn’t actually love him, only desired him, and it killed him.

She loved the Fox. Enough to free him, but then she regretted it. She could not actually have him go away. He couldn’t actually leave her. So he stayed with her until his very end. He stayed because he did love her, but in the way a teacher loves his favorite pupil. He was the closest she got to a father, but even then, it was not fully love.

She cared for her people. People knew her as just, valiant, and wise. The best queen or king the people had ever known. She fought wars and learned to battle to save lives and be seen as important. But she hid herself and wore a veil over her face, so no one could look at her or see her “ugliness”. It became a weapon. A way to make others fear. A way to keep people always at arm’s length from her.

She held herself in shackles. The sound of chains she so feared was her own. The end of the book when she confesses all that is inside of her is powerful. Not because it was good but because it was finally, after all this time, the truth. Naked and bare. Misshapen and bent. Real, raw, and true.

Only once the words were spoken could the healing begin.

She had to be stripped of all her walls, the veil, the excuses. She laid bare all the things she used to hide herself with. Finally, she could see. She knows the truth of the gods and herself. When she is like this, she can seek forgiveness (even if it is never said) and see the beauty of Him.

“The earth and stars and sun, all that was or will be, existed for his sake. And he was coming. The most dreadful, the most beautiful, the only dread and beauty there is, was coming.” 

C.S. Lewis, Till We Have Faces

Love made real.

You see, somehow Lewis took this story that in all respects is pagan and not at all connected to Christ and the light of the gospel and brought those things in to tell a story that is beautiful and shows true love.

Not the “true love” seen in movies where the destined “soul mates” notice each other across the room, desire each other, and will do anything to be together since even that feels selfish. They see someone they like and think will fulfill them and be their dream come true. There is nothing wrong with wanting to fall in love and have those happy feelings…but at the end of the day, no one can truly fulfill your heart but Jesus. Jesus is the water and bread of life. People will always fail you (meaning they cannot fulfill your heart and desires the way Jesus can for He can satisfy you but the world will leave you hollow). 

For he satisfies the longing soul, and the hungry soul he fills with good things. — Psalm 107:9 

The problem is when you look to others to satisfy you (and not God) it ends up hurting you and others. It hurts you because you are running after something that cannot fulfil you (how many interviews are there of celebrities who have made it to the top who still say it isn’t enough?). Or you are placing people or things that are not made to hold and collect worship on this pedestal, hoping this will make you happy and once you have their love or approval, then you will have made it. Or it leads you and/or others into sin. 

A good example of this is rom-coms. I think they are fun to watch, but I hate when the lead is in a relationship, and they become unhappy in that relationship until they see someone just out of reach (sometimes already in a relationship) who they have to be with. The drama of a lot of rom-coms I’ve seen is that they are with the “wrong person” and must find the perfect “right one,” or they have to break up a marriage or engagement. So when they feel attraction to someone exciting and new, this simply must be “their person” (even though they thought the first person was “their person”). It causes a lot of brokenness for the families and people involved. I know these are fictional stories, but the stories we consume change us and shape us. Honestly, this can lead into a broader topic with one of the latest controversies online about women leaving their husbands because they can always “do better” and the high rate of divorce and broken families. But that is not what this letter is about. Although it is a selfish “love” and view of life.

Our world is selfish and self-centered. What makes you happy? Do it even if it hurts others. Are you unhappy? Well, then, there are many options to make you happy, though they will never last. Soon, you will be looking for something that is even more exciting, and who cares if it slowly leads you into sinful behavior so long that it makes you happy? Nope. This is not what scripture, what Jesus, tells us. Jesus actually tells us to deny ourselves, take up our cross, and follow Him.

Then Jesus told his disciples, “If anyone would come after me, let him deny himself and take up his cross and follow me. For whoever would save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for my sake will find it. For what will it profit a man if he gains the whole world and forfeits his soul? Or what shall a man give in return for his soul?” — Matthew 16:24-26

What is leading your soul? Where are your desires leading you? Is it to yourself and the world or to Jesus?

The most important thing is to follow Jesus. To be in His will. To follow His plans. If we love Him, then we will obey His commands and do what is pleasing to Him, which is written out for us in the Bible.

“If you love me, you will keep my commandments.” — Jesus (John 14:15)

Let’s read two key passages about love—what real good and true love is.

Love is patient and kind; love does not envy or boast; it is not arrogant or rude. It does not insist on its own way; it is not irritable or resentful; it does not rejoice at wrongdoing, but rejoices with the truth. Love bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things.

Love never ends… — 1 Corinthians 13:4-8

And,

Greater love has no one than this, that someone lay down his life for his friends. — Jesus (John 15:13)

This is true love. A love that is beautiful and unselfish. A love that hopes all things and is warm and real and bright. Love that is godly and points to the loving nature of Christ.

In this the love of God was made manifest among us, that God sent his only Son into the world, so that we might live through him. In this is love, not that we have loved God but that he loved us and sent his Son to be the propitiation for our sins. Beloved, if God so loved us, we also ought to love one another. — 1 John 4:9-11

This is the love we ought to have for one another. But just because we ought to doesn’t mean it is always easy. Sometimes, the best things in life must be worked for and take effort. Not in that we need to work to deserve it but that, like planting a garden, we must tend to and water the soil and uproot any weeds so that the garden may flourish. Love it a lot like that. We need to tend to it, to uproot any weeds that go against what Scripture tells us love is, and follow in the footsteps of Jesus.

Humans, we like to feel loved and have things go our way. It is in our human nature to want to be the center of attention and to be the “sustainer of life.”

But only God can be and is the sustainer of life. Only God can fulfill the desires in your heart. Only God can make you whole and beautiful. Beautiful because He shines through you and He makes you beautiful, light, and shining from the inside out like Moses who talked to God like a friend and had such a wonderful relationship with Him and after talking to God on the mountain his face would glow. He literally had the “Jesus glow.”

Prioritizing being with Jesus, reading the Bible, praying and having a close relationship with Him will change you. He will change your desires. He will give you joy, peace, and the fruit of the Spirit. The blood of Jesus will cleanse you and transform you for the better. 

You don’t have to live in chains like Orual. Jesus, who is the chain breaker and miracle worker, can set you free!

So if the Son sets you free, you will be free indeed. — John 8:36

And we all, with unveiled face, beholding the glory of the Lord, are being transformed into the same image from one degree of glory to another. For this comes from the Lord who is the Spirit. — 2 Corinthians 3:18

This is part one in a three-part series on what stood out to me while reading Till We Have Faces by C.S. Lewis! I will see you in the next one!

Yours Truly, Moriyah

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